The Charlotte News
Thursday, July 17, 1958
FOUR EDITORIALS
Site Ed. Note: The front page
reports from Amman, Jordan, that British troops had landed this date
to thwart an imminent plot against King Hussein, according to the
British. U.S. forces had flown to Turkey, and Russia had announced
large military maneuvers on its frontiers nearby. The U.S. now had
3,400 Marines in Lebanon and more than 1,000 combat-ready
paratroopers in Turkey, with more on the way. The size of the British
forces landing in Amman was not announced. The British Navy's
43,000-ton aircraft carrier Eagle was moving close to Lebanese
waters, where the U.S. 6th Fleet, the most powerful ever assembled in
the Mediterranean, was standing guard. Other British warships and
fighting men were gathered in a large build-up of power in the
eastern Mediterranean. King Hussein of Jordan had called for help
against a mounting wave of anti-Western Arab nationalism which had
resulted in the dethroning and killing of his cousin, Faisal II, in
Iraq
Three Charlotte residents had been among the first 1,800 Marines who had landed in Lebanon on Tuesday, and a Charlotte sailor was attached to the amphibious force which had landed them. The piece provides their names.
British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd had met this date with Secretary of State Dulles regarding the events in the Middle East. Mr. Lloyd was also set to confer with the President during the afternoon to review the crisis. He was accompanied by British Joint Chiefs chairman Sir William Dixon, who had arrived in Washington after conferring with Britain's U.N. delegation in New York. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Nathan Twining, had greeted Mr. Dixon.
In London, it was reported that two plane loads of 105 evacuees from Beirut had arrived in the city this date, with most of them being British employees of Lebanon's Middle East Airline and their families.
Also in London, Britain had called on the new rebel regime in Baghdad to provide assurances that British lives and property in Iraq would be fully protected, according to informed diplomats.
In Damascus, Syria, the U.S. Consulate had urged all American tourists to get out of the Middle East. They were also warned to avoid crowds.
In Belgrade, Yugoslavia, President Tito's Government had announced this date that it would recognize the rebel government of Iraq and planned to set up normal diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Bernard Goldfine had testified this date that he was at the White House more often during the Truman Administration than since the beginning of the Eisenhower Administration in 1953. He said that he had gotten in touch with John W. Steelman, chief aide to President Truman, in his efforts to obtain a 12-million dollar Reconstruction Finance Corporation loan for a proposed garage under the Boston Common. He said the result had been very good, adding that the RFC had given him a commitment for the loan although it had later fallen through. He said that he had numerous lunches and dinners with Mr. Steelman at Washington hotels after it had been suggested to him by a Boston bank stockholder that the latter would help him with the Government loan. House investigators had moved into Mr. Goldfine's relations with Mr. Steelman during his final scheduled day of testimony regarding his relations with his old friend, White House chief of staff Sherman Adams. Charges of playing politics had been swapped among members of the subcommittee this date and at one point, Mr. Goldfine had exclaimed "smear, smear, smear" at Democratic Representative Peter Mack of Illinois. It was the eighth day of testimony by Mr. Goldfine in denial of charges that he had received favored treatment from Federal regulatory agencies through his friendship with Mr. Adams. Representative Charles Wolverton of New Jersey, the ranking Republican on the subcommittee, had brought up Mr. Steelman's name, saying that Mr. Steelman ought be questioned about any favors he had received from Mr. Goldfine. Mr. Wolverton said that the investigation was centered "almost entirely on Sherman Adams" and that he did not want an impression left with the American people that the subcommittee had engaged in political activity. The chairman of the subcommittee, Representative Oren Harris of Arkansas, and subcommittee counsel Robert Lishman had said that the inquiry by staff investigators had gone back as far as 1947 and Mr. Lishman said heatedly that charges that the staff had not been diligent and thorough were "utterly incorrect". Mr. Harris noted that Mr. Goldfine's desired RFC loan had not gone through. But Mr. Wolverton had nevertheless continued to question Mr. Goldfine's friendship with Mr. Steelman. Mr. Goldfine said that he had met Mr. Steelman in Washington in 1949 or 1950 regarding the RFC loan after he had been introduced by a stockholder of the Pilgrim Trust Co. of Boston, and that the president of that bank had suggested that he see the stockholder, a former lawyer, as someone who knew his way around Washington and might be able to help him get the loan. Mr. Goldfine did not provide the man's name but said that he was not a political figure and not involved in political fund-raising.
Not in the newspaper this date, it was reported elsewhere that the Senate Select Committee investigating misconduct in the unions and management, holding further hearings regarding infiltration of the Mafia into the Chicago restaurant trade, heard testimony this date from a waitress and hostess of a Chicago restaurant, both of whom said that Danny Leonardi and a Mr. Mack, business agents of Local 450 of the restaurant workers union, had threatened in February, 1956 that "there could be an accident down the stairs" if they did not join the union against their wishes, that a "push down the stairs" could occur resulting in a suit against their employer which would put him out of business. The hostess said that she had also been threatened if she testified before the Committee, indicating that either she should claim to be sick or would be "sicker" when she returned from the hearing. When Committee counsel Robert F. Kennedy put the question directly to Mr. Leonardi regarding the alleged threats, he asserted his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Committee chairman Senator John McClellan of Arkansas told Mr. Leonardi that the Committee had received much evidence that he was a "cheap racketeer, hoodlum, muscle man and extortionist" and asked whether he wished to make any statement in denial, which Mr. Leonardi again declined to do under his asserted privilege. Senator McClellan then told him that he hoped that the AFL-CIO ethics committee would consider his case "before sundown today". The Committee meanwhile awaited word on whether the Wednesday beating of the wife of another witness was the result of the testimony of her husband earlier that day or was simply a robbery or something else. Had Mr. Leonardi been somehow prescient of future novels and movies—aside from hair on a Coke
It was also reported by Senator McClellan that a Federal Court-appointed monitor, a member of a three-man oversight board of the Teamsters Union, had disclosed to the Federal District Court that he had been offered $100,000 to influence his decisions on the panel, if he would go along with decisions made by the member of the board who had been appointed at the request of the Teamsters. Senator McClellan said that he believed the matter was properly referred to the Court for investigation and was not likely within the purview of the Committtee, but Mr. Kennedy said that the Committee investigators were looking into it. The latter said that the names of the individuals purported to have offered the bribe were known to the Committee but would not be released pending the Committee's investigation.
At Cape Canaveral, Fla., the Army had launched a Jupiter intermediate range ballistic missile 1,500 miles across the Atlantic this date and recovered its advanced nosecone afterward, following a successful reentry. The recovery of the nosecone had been announced about two hours after the launch. It was the second time a full-scale IRBM nosecone had survived reentry from space at a speed of 10,000 mph and had been recovered. The Army's missile chief, Dr. Wernher von Braun, had observed the launch. Officials announced that the recovery this date and the first one on May 18 had "affirmed that Army missile men have found a satisfactory solution to the warhead protection problem." The U.S.S. Escape, one of four specially equipped ships and two planes which composed the Navy's recovery team, had recovered the cone from the sea 96 minutes after it had returned from space. The recovery package, which included a large balloon, radio transmitter, dye marker and signal light, had led the search unit to the spot. The Jupiter, which was expected to provide the first stage for the Army's moon rocket, had been launched at 4:05 a.m. It had climbed straight up, emitting a thick stream of white flame which illuminated the Florida sky for miles, and after 70 seconds, moved toward a horizontal course and proceeded toward the horizon. The 69-foot rocket had been visible for more than 13 minutes, much longer than usual, as it reflected the rays of the rising sun—all the way from over in New Orle'ns, and that's a fact. The fleet of Navy search vessels had rendezvoused in the predetermined impact area, awaiting the reentry of the nosecone. The Jupiter warhead plunged into the sea near Antigua Island, several hundred miles east of Puerto Rico.
In Taipei, Formosa, the death toll from a typhoon had mounted to 21 this date, after delayed reports from the east coast port of Hualien said that 16 had been killed there when the storm had come through on Tuesday.
Near Wamego, Kans., six persons had been killed this date in a head-on collision of a car and an automobile-transport truck three miles west of the town.
In Clarksdale, Miss., a car and a truck had collided at a highway intersection early this date, killing four persons and critically injuring two others.
In Raleigh, an all-white jury this date had found a 43-year old black janitor guilty of raping an attractive white woman, making no recommendation for mercy, meaning that he would face the death penalty.
Dick Young of The News reports that petitions for designation of areas around Harding High School and Piedmont Junior High School as separate local option units had been filed with the City School Board this date. An attorney, indicating that he represented the 600 to 700 citizens who had signed the two petitions, had made the initial move to set up the legal machinery which would permit holding elections on whether either or both schools would be closed because of the enrollment of black students. Direct reference to enrollment of black students in those two schools had not been made by the attorney, indicating that the residents of the school areas were merely invoking the law to be able to meet any "intolerable situation" which might develop. He did not say that any election would be sought. An election could be called provided that 15 percent of the registered voters in the local option unit petitioned for a referendum. The Board had taken no action but accepted the petitions as information for further consideration. It was the first attempt in Charlotte by citizens to initiate legal proceedings for a possible future vote on whether a school would be maintained or closed following desegregation. The procedure was authorized by the State Pupil Assignment Law, the so-called Pearsall Plan.
John Kilgo of The News reports that police Capt. Lloyd Henkel's future with the department awaited an announcement during the afternoon by the Civil Service Board. There was the possibility that at least one phase of the hearing might be reopened. Police Chief Frank Littlejohn's attorneys had appeared before the Commission in the morning with new evidence concerning a $50 check of Capt. Henkel which was supposed to have been turned over to the Police Club as a donation. One of the charges in the bill of particulars against him was that he had failed to turn over a $50 donation to the Club, which had been given to him for that purpose in 1953. What will happen? Everyone is waiting with bated breath.
In Warrington, England, it was reported that the roar of a cannon had shattered the peace of a street the previous night, as a volley of croquet balls whistled through the air, with one, weighing a pound, having crashed through a window and landed in a man's bed. Another had shattered a window in another house. The croquet balls were followed into the street by an embarrassed major who was commanding officer of Peninsular Barracks three streets away. He said that there had been some horseplay at his farewell party and that they had been firing croquet balls out of an old cannon, that he could not understand how they had traveled so far. The new commanding officer, a lieutenant colonel, said that the cannon was a trophy from the 1700's and that everyone fired it sooner or later, that the croquet ball usually just rolled out the end and trickled across the barrack square. The old cannon had obviously been pumping iron in the gym by night to get well beyond the sticky wicket.
On the editorial page, "Mayor Smith: A Point To Sharpen" finds that great significance could be read into the City Council decisions concerning parks and recreation.
It indicates that one of the points of Mayor Jim Smith's 15-point program had pledged full cooperation to the Park and Recreation Commission in expanding the recreational program to meet the needs of the territory to be annexed at the beginning of 1960. It suggests that it would not hurt and might help considerably if the Mayor spent time honing that point in public.
"Sound and Fury Signifying What?" indicates that the vacuum which had passed for a Middle Eastern policy from the U.S. had suddenly been filled by the bold intervention in Lebanon. But neither the President nor Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., had been willing to explain what the intervention meant in terms of the future, though outlining generally the reasons for it. It finds that what was needed was a clear and concise expression of the long-range goals.
Merely to say that the U.S. was for peace, security and freedom was not enough, and it owed it to the Arabs, Israel, the neutralist bloc, its Western allies and its own people an explanation for what it had in mind for the region and how military intervention would promote those goals.
It finds that in Charlotte, it had been apparent that ordinarily well-informed citizens had been uninformed and, to some extent, misinformed about U.S. motives in sending the troops to Lebanon. They had only the haziest notions about the importance of the region and some could not locate Lebanon on a world map. Most Americans probably shared that lack of appreciation of the facts of diplomatic life concerning the most dangerous and explosive region in the world. Yet, the peace of the world and the lives and future of the people of Charlotte hinged on events in the Middle East.
The President and his advisers presumably recognized that essential fact, but thus far had failed to share their enlightenment with the people. It thus finds it small wonder that Americans lacked a satisfactory understanding of the situation or a sense of its urgency. It concludes that it was time for candor and leadership.
"Charlemagne Would Have Fired Adams" indicates that Senator Paul Neuberger of Oregon had linked the case of Sherman Adams with Charlemagne, indicating that influence-peddling had been as much of a problem in the Ninth Century as it was at present. Hans Linde, an assistant of Senator Neuberger, had offered historical proof from a document titled "Instructions for the Use of Stewards of the Royal Properties of Charlemagne", which stated: "Our steward shall not presume to put our people to their own service … and shall accept no gifts from them, either horse, ox, cow, pig, sheep, little pig, lamb or anything else excepting bottles of wine or other beverage…"
Philosopher Georg Wilhelm Frederich Hegel had said some 130 years earlier: "People and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it."
For some context to Dr. Hegel's lectures from circa 1830, we add the more contemporary understanding of the late Dr. E. M. Adams of UNC, as related in his work, Religion and Cultural Freedom, from 1993—some 22 years after he first imparted to our then-callow eyes a more philosophical understanding of the world about us. We recall our first-week philosophical paper therein, unassigned as to topic and ungraded, in which we posited our then pet theory that "money is the root of all evil", proceeding to bolster the contention with historical examples, including the Third Reich, to which the graduate-assistant appended the simple note: "This is not a philosophical problem." We realized thenceforth our error and proceeded accordingly, though we still hold to the belief of our original premise, even if not, strictly speaking, a philosophical question, at least not as we framed it.
The unstudied could stand to study these concepts assiduously in a philosophical vein rather than from a totemic, emotive stance of irremediable certitude, and perhaps may then be less sure in arrogating to themselves, pharisaically, their superficial story-book understanding of that which is actually quite complex and multifaceted in its implications, less susceptible thereby to being hoodwinked by self-assured touring purveyors of various nostrums, cloaked as quick references to out-of-context, in time and text, Biblical verse, put forth as definite panaceas for this or that malady which ails you, whether physically, mentally or both, such as the Administration's advice in recent days regarding acetaminophen and pregnancy, which the dictator-in-chief cannot even pronounce without help from the Ozmandu brigade—a clue—, put forth by the primus inter pares patent-medicine purveyor of American history, the one category in which this individual excels above all other prior occupants of the White House, coming very close to, if not surpassing, that predestined ruler of the nascent nation, King George III and his associated madness, against whom and which the nation formed and then rebelled successfully, albeit imperfect in its beginnings and remaining so, but, in ever striving to approximate and achieve more closely that truth which sets men free in union, not complacency, therein embraces its continued vitality, setting it apart from the self-declared "perfect" dictatorships of the present and past, while being aware that time and its inexorable movement apace physically through the universe, itself, prevents any immutable truth which has applicability universally in every context, society and moment of every day, save perhaps the Cartesian notion of "cogito ergo sum", even if forced in an instant of unexpected emergency, provided one first understands what it is to think, as opposed to emote and conjure from the randomness of self-servingly arranged pick-up sticks, bundled as fascio or otherwise.
As an aside, we must feel some sympathy for the makers of the most commonly purveyed form of the transitory remedy in question, as it is not the first time
And we have to advise strongly not taking too much the advice and judgment of those who, in the past, have been willing to take the risk to their lives of intake of medications not dispensed by any pharmacy or pharmacist and obtained through illicit channels, especially when done over a prolonged period of time. In so indicating, we do not forget the notion that the person in question grew up from the time of his mid-teens without the guidance of his father, and while we respect his long recovery, that does not, ipso facto, suggest him to be in charge now of the nation's health, just because he subscribes obeisantly during the past year to the senile Leader's concepts of rationality, solely for his own vainglory, having shopped around his skills to both political camps about a year ago, when, apparently, some negative force
in the universe, of unknown origin
"Changing Times" indicates that the magazine of that name had reminded it this date how fast times changed, that in the 1930's, one bought an apple to help the unemployed and now one had to buy an automobile.
A piece from the Greensboro Daily News, titled "The Tea Bureau Wouldn't Approve", indicates that some weeks earlier, a reader had taken the newspaper to task for using the wrong word in describing the process of making tea, when it had said that it was boiled rather than steeped, as the reader had corrected. It had now learned that there was another verb which was acceptable, as the Tea Bureau of England had sanctioned the word "brewed", according to the Manchester Guardian.
The ceremony of tea-making and
serving had always seemed so esoteric as to scare off all except the
initiated, but thanks to the Guardian, it had been made privy
to some of the secrets. For example, one should not forget to heat
the teapot and the pot should be kept warm until the boiling water
was poured into the pot
After the boiling water had been
poured on the tea, the pot ought be allowed to stand for five minutes
before the ritual of tea serving began. The server should not neglect
to ask those served whether they wanted milk
It was better to put in the milk afterward. At a tea-making contest organized by the Bureau in Manchester, a tea-taster had said that he could not see how to judge the strength of tea if there was milk already in it. One little girl had been rewarded with a grade of 93 for asking, "Do you take your milk before or after and do you like your tea strong or weak?"
It finds, in conclusion, that all of the instructions and prohibitions caused it to be inclined to abandon the idea of English tea-making before it even took it up.
While the editorial is not in reference to the same piece, another on the subject had appeared from the Guardian in March, the original of which having been published February 25, about three weeks before the subject piece, appearing St. Pat's Day.
And, should you want for a good teaset, ma Bell, look no farther than slugger-land, here, for one of the best of Churchill's sea-bets; or, should you like a dash of nicely hand-painted adornment under glaze on your ceramic, you might opt for one from Gibson & Sons, aroint ye to the hunt unfazed, also of Britannic, imported by the same firm of brotherly love, Fisher, Bruce, though we shall not join the cognoscenti blessed with that germ of truth 'til April, 1962, being in the interim mostly fissured and juiced, 'round a half-cycle 'bout the sun afore they'll record 'cross the pond "Love Me Do", backed with "P.S., I Love You"—a bit of scat-cat titled wax, though we're not supposed to convey that peckered woody sacrilege to those still of the tethered, moody smacker-midge
Drew Pearson indicates that the Kremlin timetable for the Middle East was on schedule, that the previous October, following talks with Arab leaders, Mr. Pearson had reported of Premier Gamal Abdel Nasser's plan to unite Syria and Egypt as the United Arab Republic, and the Russian plan to work with Premier Nasser in gradually taking over all of the Arab states through subversion and revolution. As he had reported, the Kremlin timetable had been three months to take over the Kingdom of Jordan, six months to take over Saudi Arabia, nine months to take over Lebanon and a year to take over Iraq. Jordan had not fallen in three months as tough King Hussein, supported by U.S. arms and British-trained Bedouins of the Arab Legion, had resisted all attempts to undermine his regime. But the timetable had been sped up for Iraq, a country supposed to be a stronghold for the West, which had fallen in nine months instead of the anticipated year.
The Eisenhower Doctrine had been proclaimed to block the Soviet timetable in the region. In Saudi Arabia, King Saud's visit to the U.S. appeared to have been for naught, as the sick King was a virtual prisoner in his own palace, with his brother, Prince Faisal, a friend of Premier Nasser, having been running the country. The King had asked the State Department to send an American doctor to look at him, and after the visit, was expected to go to Switzerland for medical treatment and remain there indefinitely, which would be a cue for the Prince to accede to the throne. There was already unrest in the country and a definite alliance with Egypt was anticipated, after the Prince assumed the throne.
In Lebanon, pro-Western President Camille Chamoun, a Catholic surrounded by Moslems, was bitter against the U.S. after having pressed Secretary of State Dulles for weeks informally to supply aid pursuant to the Eisenhower Doctrine, while Mr. Dulles had been working through the U.S. ambassador to head off any formal request for aid. During the week, President Chamoun had formally invoked the Doctrine. To that point, Mr. Dulles had pointed out that the U.N. had found no evidence of foreign intervention in the country. But U.N. Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold had now admitted privately to U.S. diplomats that he had deliberately whitewashed the Syrian-Egyptian intervention in Lebanon so as not to embarrass Premier Nasser. When Dr. Hammarskjold had gone to Cairo, Premier Nasser had promised to cooperate with the U.N. provided the U.N. did not embarrass him. If the U.S. and England intervened, Premier Nasser warned that he would be forced to resist. So the Secretary-General had declared that there was no evidence of an Egyptian-Syrian army entering Lebanon.
In Iraq, instead of cooperating with the Secretary-General as promised, Premier Nasser's agents in Baghdad had dealt the West one of the most deadly blows yet received from the region. The U.S. did not have the slightest inkling that revolt was imminent. The CIA, usually on top of things, was caught without a clue. The U.S. had been so confident of the Iraqi Army that it was planning to use them, along with Turkish troops, to intervene in Lebanon. American transport planes had been flown to southern Turkey near the Iraqi border from Wiesbaden, West Germany, to be ready to ferry Iraqi troops to Lebanon.
In Israel, when Mr. Pearson had reported the Kremlin timetable to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion the previous fall, the latter had repeatedly said, "This is a problem for President Eisenhower." What he meant was that the plan to solidify the Arab states in an anti-Western confederation under Premier Nasser was too big for Israel, and he had been correct. Since that time, Prime Minister Ben-Gurion had been warning the State Department that unless Egyptian-Syrian intervention was stopped in Lebanon, American influence in the oil-rich Middle East would end. Mr. Dulles, however, had refused to listen. Prime Minister Ben-Gurion had considered the possibility of Israeli armed intervention to stop the Nasser tide, but the last time he had intervened, in the 1956 Suez-Sinai crisis, he had been stopped by President Eisenhower. This time, he would have to face not only Egypt to the south but also Syria to the north and perhaps Jordan to the east.
Joseph Alsop indicates that in Iraq the chickens were coming home to roost, as the tragedy there was a direct result of the Administration's policy or lack thereof in the Middle East, a reminder that if the country did not stand by its friends, it should expect to lose them.
The foundations for the military coup in Iraq had been laid by the Administration's handling of the Suez crisis in November, 1956, as well as the "faking and fiddling" which followed, plus the "slow-motion Munich" in Lebanon, where until the Marines had landed during the week, the Administration had been parodying former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's course at Munich in 1938, but with "'due deliberate speed'" for the previous two months.
He suggests that the Administration's propagandists would say that the British had also been fooled in their management of the Suez crisis, as they had been, and would also talk about powerful tides at work among the Arab masses, which was also true. But the Government might have nullified the follies of others and controlled or channeled the tides running in the region through foresighted and courageous action. Instead of trying to solve the situation, the Government had added its own follies, moralizing and hectoring which had played a great part in transforming the badly prepared Suez operation into a terrible defeat which could have been avoided.
The State Department's propagandists would also suggest that they could not have stopped the plot within the Iraqi Army, but while such plots in the region were inevitable, such successful plots were not. The State Department had openly taken credit for helping to frustrate the military conspiracies of the followers of Premier Nasser to destroy King Hussein of Jordan in March, 1957. He finds it not empty boasting. At the time, the absence of content to the Eisenhower Doctrine had not yet widely been perceived, and it was thought that it might still be tending toward friends of the West in the Middle East. As a result, there had been just enough support for King Hussein to enable him, with great personal courage, to frustrate the plot which Premier Nasser had organized in the Arab Legion.
Subsequently, the Doctrine's emptiness was openly displayed by the Syrian crisis, and, worse, in the Lebanese crisis, the U.S. having first made a solemn commitment to come to the rescue of the pro-Western Government in Lebanon by promising to intervene militarily if requested to do so to protect Lebanon's independence from Premier Nasser's half-concealed attack. Nearly two months had passed before the U.S. had acted, however, on its commitment to Lebanon, using that intervening time to press the Lebanese not to force the U.S. to follow through on its promise and rather to organize U.N. imitation of the Runciman mission to Czechoslovakia and generally to prove the worthlessness of American friendship. As a result, any fool in Baghdad could perceive which way the wind was blowing and thus many people began to support the military coup.
The Government had ample warning that the results would be expected, and if the coup produced the catastrophic sequels which seemed likely, it would not be any consolation to say to those who had predicted it, including Mr. Alsop, that they had said so. "But do you remember these richly ringing promises of 'a dynamic new foreign policy' which would 'recapture the initiative' based on American military power capable of 'massive retaliation?'" He urges that those phrases had better not be used again.
Doris Fleeson indicates that Congress had greeted U.S. intervention in the Middle East soberly and with its fingers crossed, with all of its responsible members realizing that the President's action in sending the Marines to Lebanon was irreversible at present and that to weaken or undermine it would be a terrible mistake. They were also aware that it was much easier to get into the danger area with armed forces than to withdraw. The Congressional leaders had repeatedly referenced in private Korea, its military history and the repercussions of that war at home. The members generally expressed astonishment that after the long hesitation in a situation which had plainly been deteriorating for awhile, the President would have acted so quickly, never having told participants in conferences at the White House with Administration officials of the intended intervention.
Senators now believed that the action had already been ordered, but would not make a point of it. Those Senators present at the White House conferences also stated that the CIA had also been caught unaware and they were more critical of that than past CIA failures respecting Russia, pointing out that Iraq was a friendly country and a beneficiary of American aid, both military and economic.
The President was described by a responsible source as committed to the view that the Iraq disaster was a plot on the part of the Kremlin. That was an assumption, as no proof of it had been offered, with some positing that there might be a civil war in Iraq. The President was said to have reacted coolly, even with a slight flavor of hostility, to such a notion. Reminded that Egypt's Premier Nasser had proved adept at exploiting Arab nationalism, he remained unresponsive.
The reserve in Congress on the matter was true of both parties, evident in the lack of flag-waving and enthusiasm. It had shown publicly when House Speaker Sam Rayburn had squelched a young critic, Representative Henry Reuss of Wisconsin. It had also showed again when the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had voted for a long-range examination of foreign policy after only a few days earlier having refused to do so. A few members expressed cautious optimism, suggesting that if American action could save the situation temporarily, it would perhaps help to stabilize things, even if they did not really believe it. If Korea were not so fresh in their minds, they might press the argument with more force, but it was essentially the same Congress which had dealt with the Korean War, and many members would say that they were not disposed to forget it.
A letter from the chairman of the state Federation of Young Republicans says that he had read with mixed interest and amusement an article appearing July 9, titled "Clark Opens Campaign with Blast at GOP", with Democratic Congressional candidate David Clark having attempted to assign blame to the Administration for "high unemployment, high cost of living, high number of business failures … low farm income, and declining national product." He says that Mr. Clark had forgotten that the Congress was controlled by the Democrats during the previous two years and that they could have tried to ameliorate those conditions. He had also overlooked that North Carolina ranked lowest among the 48 states in public welfare expenditures and in earnings for its manufacturing employees, 43rd in per capita income, 44th in bank deposits and at the top in taxation and crime, despite the Legislature being controlled by Democrats for many years, and Mr. Clark having served in the Legislature. He suggests that if Mr. Clark could do no more to improve the national rating than he had to improve the state's rating, then he had little basis on which to criticize others. He thus favors return of incumbent Representative Charles Jonas for another term.
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